


would you be so kind (as to fall in love with me)

by middle_earthling



Series: Space Husbands (Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber renewed my belief in love) [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffee Shops, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Injuries, Romance, astromycology, except it's not an AU because they really did meet in a coffee shop bless this pure show, hugh and paul are disgustingly in love, hugh culber is a damn good doctor and a damn cute one at that, hugh culber is too good for this world, injured paul stamets, kasseelian opera, sass master paul stamets, straal is a nosy bitch, the story of how hugh and paul met and fell in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 14:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17644988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middle_earthling/pseuds/middle_earthling
Summary: His normal coffee break takes a turn for the better when Paul Stamets yells at the cute guy who won't stop humming Kasseelian opera.ORA possible telling of how Paul and Hugh met and fell in love, based on the story that Paul tells Michael in season one episode seven "Magic to Make the Sanest Man go Mad".





	would you be so kind (as to fall in love with me)

Until the noise started, Paul had been enjoying his coffee. He had been on Alpha Centauri for three weeks so far, and last week he had found this lovely, quiet little café, tucked away in a side street, away from the hustle and bustle of the main city streets. Every day since he had gone there for coffee, whenever he had a chance to leave the lab (or, as happened alarmingly often, he was kicked out and forced to take a break by his research partner, Straal), and every time it had been a peaceful break from the stress of his new job assignment. Until now.

The man sitting at the next table over from Paul was humming to himself, loudly. He didn’t appear to be aware of it, in fact he appeared quite lost in his own world, seeming to stare vacantly at something outside the window and occasionally absent-mindedly raised his mug to his lips, giving Paul a temporary reprieve from the annoying sound of his humming. Paul watched the man, for a moment, but he couldn’t tell much about him as only part of his profile was visible to him from this angle.

The humming continued, and the tune seemed to gain a new level of complexity, making the sound even worse. Paul took a few measured sips of his coffee in an attempt to control his growing annoyance, to no avail. He exhaled through his nose, loudly, and before he could stop himself the words had already left his mouth.

“Either stifle that noise right now or go sit somewhere else!”

His outburst worked, and the humming stopped. If he wasn’t so relieved by the quiet, Paul might have felt bad for being so rude to a complete stranger. As it was, he was so busy enjoying the sudden peace that he barely registered the sound of chair legs scraping against the concrete floor.

The empty chair beside Paul was suddenly pulled out and the man sat in it, inching it as close to Paul as he could without physically touching him. The humming resumed, louder this time, and right in his ear. Paul turned sideways to glare at the offending man, and all he received was a surprisingly attractive grin, and continued humming.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Paul raised his hands in a placating gesture.

The man quirked an eyebrow upwards, and kept humming, a playful glint in his dark brown eyes.

“Is that… Kasseelian opera?” Paul asked in disbelief.

“I’m surprised you recognise it!” said the man, finally, blessedly, ceasing his god-awful noise.

“I only recognise it because of how much I hate it,” Paul deadpanned.

“How could you hate something so beautiful?”

“How could you find something so annoying beautiful?” retorted Paul.

“I mean, you’re annoying but that doesn’t mean you aren’t also beautiful,” said the man with a teasing smile.

“I don’t see what that has to do with…” Paul trailed off, suddenly realizing what the man had actually said. “Did you just call me beautiful?”

“I did. Do you have a problem with that?”

Paul took a moment to actually look at his strange new companion, who, despite his awful, awful taste in music was quite distractingly attractive. The man had closely cropped dark brown hair which accentuated just how strong his jaw was, and his brown eyes were so warm that they seemed to shine with a sort of soft kindness.

“No, I uh, I definitely don’t have a problem with that, uh,” Paul paused a moment, realizing he didn’t know the mans name.

Sensing his hesitation, the man smiled and offered his hand to Paul. “I’m Hugh. Doctor Hugh Culber, in fact, although the doctor thing is a new addition.”

“Ensign Paul Stamets, the ensign thing is quite new for me as well,” Paul said as he grasped Hugh’s hand and shook it.

“So, you’re Starfleet too, huh?”

“Yeah, this is my first assignment post Academy. I just work in a lab, though.”

“What do you do in your lab? I think we must have been at the Academy at the same time, because this is my fist posting as well. I’m interning here, at the hospital, to gain practical experience in xenobiology before I can work on a starship.”

“I’m an astromycologist, and my partner and I are researching the possible uses of mycelium spores in space travel,” said Paul, stopping himself before he could go on one of his passion driven scientific rants.

“So… you’re saying you think we could travel space using… mushrooms?” Hugh didn’t sound like he was making fun of him, but he did sound a little sceptical.

“You say that likes it sounds ridiculous!” Paul said, fully aware that ‘space travel via mushroom network’ did sound a little unbelievable. But he’d been researching this for three years now, and though their research had yet to form any solid foundations for physical use, Paul knew that soon, they would have a break through and revolutionise space travel forever.

“I didn’t say that!” defended Hugh with a laugh.

“You were thinking it though,” said Paul, grinning. Normally, he would have gotten angry at someone thinking that his work was weird, or at the very least prickly and defensive but something about this strange man seemed to bring out his playful side.

“Well, maybe a little,” Hugh admitted. “But it also sounds really cool.”

“It is really cool!” Paul said, a little too enthusiastically. Cool it Paul, he thought to himself. You don’t want to scare away the weird yet cute guy you just met by being too much of a nerd. Paul hastily took a sip of his rapidly cooling coffee, so that he couldn’t keep talking.

Hugh let it stay quiet for a few moments, sipping his own drink, and looking at Paul. Eventually, he broke the silence. “I’ve seen you in this café twice now, why do you come here so often?”

“Well, I liked the quiet this place offered. Until today that is,” replied Paul, raising one slightly sardonic eyebrow. “You must come here pretty often yourself, to have seen me twice.”

Hugh didn’t have the good grace to look even slightly abashed. “As a matter of fact, the first time I came here was also the first time I saw you. You interested me.”

Paul had not expected Hugh to say that, because why would someone as charismatic, confident and attractive as Hugh spare more than a passing glance for someone as awkward looking and anti-social as him? “What was it that took your fancy? The bizarrely pale skin, or the enchantingly dark circles under my eyes?” Paul said, unable to stop himself from being sarcastic and a little self-deprecating.

“No, actually,” Hugh said, surprisingly gently. “You looked like someone with a lot to say, and I liked that.”

Just as Paul was about to respond, a communicator beeped loudly. Hugh jumped a little and pulled the offending device from his pocket. “Crap,” he groaned. “That was from my resident, I’m needed at the hospital ASAP. I have to go, I’m so sorry Paul.”

“Duty calls, dear doctor,” said Paul. “I was going to have to go soon anyway, my mushrooms need me.”

“Will I see you again?” Hugh said as he stood up from their table.

“That depends, are you planning to hum Kasseelian opera here again any time soon?”

Hugh just laughed in response.

“I’ll be here tomorrow, and the next day, and probably every day after that,” said Paul.

“It was so nice to meet you, Paul,” Hugh’s warm smile was genuine.

“Terrible taste in music aside, it was nice to meet you too.”

Hugh smiled at him one last time, before turning tail and walking quickly out the door.

~

On the walk back to the lab from the café, Paul couldn’t help but think about Hugh and his kind eyes, and warm smile. Not to mention his strong, broad shoulders that hinted at an even better body. The last thing Paul had expected when Straal, had kicked him out of the lab and forced him to take a break today was to meet a handsome stranger.

His meeting with Hugh had been unexpected, and strange, but everything Hugh had said had seemed so genuine and warm, not to mention the fact that he called Paul beautiful, and implied that he came back to the café, just to see him. It wasn’t that Paul was so unused to positive attention from other people, or even that he was completely inexperienced when it came to romance, because he had had his fair share of awkward teenage crushes, and even a casual thing with a guy or two during his Academy days, but Paul wasn’t someone who knew how to talk to people on the best of days, and he found Hugh’s interest in him somewhat perplexing.

He had friends, yes, but they were mostly other scientists that he worked with and could talk about his work and his interests with easily, and generally other people found Paul to be abrasive and rather trying. Hugh wasn’t a fellow astromycologist, but he was a doctor, and that meant he was more than capable of understanding at least the basics of Paul’s work, and Paul’s rude outburst hadn’t scared him away. In fact, that was what had made him approach Paul and strike up a conversation.

  
He didn’t understand Hugh, or why he was interested in him, but he did know that he wanted to see him again. Despite only talking for a few minutes, their conversation had been easy, comfortable and almost familiar, in a way that Paul couldn’t remember ever feeling with another person so quickly.

“You look weirdly happy,” said Straal a few moments after Paul walked back into their shared office (which was basically just a small room with a few computers in it, attached to the large lab that they used as a greenhouse for the mushrooms).

“I had a… strange encounter at the coffee shop today.”

“Strange how?” Straal stopped typing and stood up from his computer to face Paul.

“I yelled at a guy for humming and then he sat next to me and we talked for like twenty minutes and it was surprisingly really nice?” said Paul, leaning against his desk.

“You yelled at him and then he decided to make friends with you?”

“I said it was weird.”

“You look happier then that warrants though,” Staal’s face suddenly lit up. “Oh! I know why you’re so happy! This guy wasn’t some kind of weirdo, was he? He was cute!”

“He definitely was a weirdo, but I have to admit… he was a cute weirdo,” Paul smiled in spite of himself as he thought back on his conversation with the handsome, kind eyed doctor.

“So? Did you get his contact info?” Straal demanded. Despite being an incredibly well-educated scientist, Straal was also one of the biggest gossips Paul knew.

“No, but I told him I’d be at the café again pretty much every day and he said he’d see me there. He had to leave in a hurry, his work called him,” Paul told his friend.

“Do you know what his job is? Maybe you could surprise him at work and ask him out!”

“He’s a Starfleet doctor, but no! I don’t even know the guy!”

“Yeah, but do you want to get to know him?” Straal raised a teasing, somewhat salacious eyebrow.

“Oh my god, shut up. I never should have said anything to you!” Paul hopped off the desk he was sitting on and turned around, hoping that he had been quick enough that Straal hadn’t seen the red blush that rose on his pale cheeks at the thought of ‘getting to know’ Hugh.

“I saw that! Someone’s got a crush,” said Straal in an annoying sing-song voice.

“I hate you,” grumbled Paul, as he walked away from his friend and into the greenhouse.

Once inside the greenhouse, Paul very firmly shut the door to the office so that Straal’s continuing taunts about being in love couldn’t follow him into the room. Deciding to get back to work rather than keep thinking pointlessly about Hugh, Paul started on his rounds of checking on each of their growing mushrooms.

As Paul walked around the greenhouse, scanning each specimen with a tricorder he took off the shelf near the door, his mind kept replaying the events in the café, and no matter how hard he tried to distract himself with the menial work of changing air temperatures and moisture levels in different sections, his brain kept wandering back to the cute doctor. Hugh had called him beautiful! And said that he came back to that café, on two different occasions, just because he wanted to see Paul again!

Paul was still having a hard time believing that someone like Hugh would be interested in him, but what reason would Hugh have to lie to him? He was the one that started talking to Paul, even after Paul had been rude to him.

Distracted as he was with thoughts of Hugh, Paul didn’t notice that he was getting too close to a particularly self-defensive specimen until he felt a sudden burning pain in his left hand. Dropping the tricorder and looking at his hand, Paul realized he had accidentally brushed one of the fungi that secreted a type of acid as a defence mechanism with his bare hand.

Cursing as the pain got worse, Paul gripped his left hand in his right and hurried back into the office.

“Straal I did something dumb,” said Paul as he stepped into the room.

“You do something dumb every day, is this supposed to be news to me?” Straal replied without looking up from his computer.

“Very funny but yes, because this time it really fucking hurts,” Paul couldn’t quite keep his voice steady as his entire left hand felt as though it was on fire now and he could see the burn deepening.

Hearing the pain in his friend’s voice Straal looked up from his computer and saw the hand Paul was holding and how red the skin was and cursed.

“Paul! What the hell did you do?” Straal’s voice was tense and almost frightened as he got up and quickly reached his friend’s side.

“I was just looking after the mushrooms, but I got distracted and I accidentally touched one of them, and because today is my lucky day, I happened to touch the one that drips flesh eating acid.”

“Oh my god what do we do?” Straal was staring at Paul’s hand in terrified concern.

“I don’t know! It really hurts!”

“Do we have a first aid kit anywhere?” said Straal.

“I don’t know! Go look!” Paul sat down on the chair that Straal had recently vacated, his skin even paler than normal (which was a feat unto itself). Straal tore open the only cupboards in the room but found nothing except for useless tech and old research papers.

“I think we’re going to have to go to the hospital, Paul,” Straal said, coming back to stand beside his injured friend.

“No hospital,” Paul said tersely, although the tightness in his face betrayed his words and told of the pain he was in.

“I don’t think you’ve got much choice buddy, that burn is looking worse every minute we waste arguing about it.”

Paul was about to argue again, but then his hand gave a particularly horrible throb and he knew his protest was pointless. “Fine, you win, fuck,” said Paul with a wince. He stood up and Straal put an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t need help walking you know, it’s not that bad,” Paul said grumpily.

“This is more for my own peace of mind than yours, so you’re just going to have to accept it.”

Paul rolled his eyes and pulled his injured hand closer to his chest as the two of them made their way out of the lab building and into the streets of Alpha Centauri, heading for the Starfleet hospital building.

~

They didn’t have to wait long in the general accident and emergency area before Paul was taken back into a private consult room and told to sit on a bio-bed by a friendly Andorian nurse.

“So, it says here you received an acid burn from a form of toxic mushroom is that right, Mr uh -,” the nurse quickly looked down at her PADD again to get his name. “Stamets,” she finished, making eye contact with Paul again.

“Yeah,” Paul said succinctly, not really in the mood for talking what with how much his hand was hurting and how embarrassed he was over how careless this injury made him look.

“Well Mr Stamets that looks like a pretty serious burn,” said the nurse as she inspected his hand. I’m going to need to grab the on-call doctor to take a look before we get started with the regenerator.”

Paul just nodded and sank back on the bio-bed while she left the room.

“You’re a dumbass Paul,” said Straal, who was sitting in a conveniently placed chair beside the bed.

“Yes, thank you for your input Straal.” Paul closed his eyes and sighed, pulling his injured hand close to his chest again.

“So, what were you thinking about that had you distracted enough to make that kind of mistake? You’re an idiot but you aren’t usually careless.”

Paul pointedly turned his head and ignored his research partner.

“I bet I know,” Straal said, his voice gaining a teasing quality now that he was not so actively worried about his friend, who was about to be looked after by trained medical professionals.

“Shut up.”

“I bet you were thinking about your mysterious cute coffee shop guy!”

“I really wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were because you met a cute boy and now you have a crush on him.”

“I really hate you, you know.”

“I would have said that I know you love me more than anyone else, but I think my position may have been taken by your new coffeeshop romance.” As Straal was talking, the door to the consult room opened. Paul opened his eyes to see the newcomer and was greeted with a very familiar (and very attractive) face.

“Funny seeing you here,” said Doctor Hugh Culber, shutting the door behind him.

“I would say likewise but you work here so I guess it’s really not, actually,” Paul replied, rambling a little because he was caught off guard.

Hugh smiled, and it crinkled the corner of his eyes. “Well it’s a good thing I do, because you look as though you might need some help,” Hugh said, gesturing to the hand Paul was still clutching to his chest.

“It’s not that bad,” Paul said, as his hand continued to burn, and he could barely contain his grimace.

“Okay, tough guy, can I take a look at it?”

Paul nodded and gingerly held his hand out to Hugh, who very carefully took the injured appendage in his big, gentle hands. He turned Paul’s hand over and inspected it closely, making a sort of concerned tutting sound as he did so. Paul couldn’t help but smile a little at the sound, which Hugh didn’t seem to be aware he was making. He did that a lot, apparently. When it wasn’t badly hummed Kasseelian opera, it was actually quite an endearing trait.

“3rd degree burn to palm and smaller 2nd degree ones to wrist, that’s quite a bad injury to be caused by a mushroom,” Hugh said, finally letting Paul’s hand drop back onto his chest, and reaching into a cabinet beside the bed and pulling out a hypo-spray.

“Being an astromycologist is a very dangerous job, couldn’t you tell from the name?” Straal said, from where he was still sitting beside Paul.

“Oh yes, when I think of mushroom science, my first thought is danger,” Hugh agreed, turning back to Paul.

“Isn’t it against your doctor code to make fun of your patients?” Paul said, snarkily.

“Not unless its proven to be detrimental to the patient’s health,” replied Hugh with a smirk. “Speaking of your health, this will help with the pain.” Hugh gestured to the hypo-spray he was holding, before quickly injecting its contents into Paul’s neck.

“Ow,” said Paul, raising his non-injured hand and placing it against the injection site.

“Oh, I’m sorry, would you like a lollipop for being such a brave little patient?” said Hugh, teasingly.

“I know you’re only joking but now I do actually want a lollipop.”

“They only keep lollipops in the paediatrics unit, I’m sorry,” Hugh said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I have to go get the dermal regenerator, I might be a few minutes. Will you be okay while I’m gone?”

Paul nodded, already beginning to feel better from the pain-killer.

“Based off the sexual tension and stupid smiles being exchanged between you and that surprisingly good-looking doctor, I’m going to say its safe to assume that was your mystery hot coffee doctor?” said Straal.

“Yes, that was him and no, you can’t ask him weird questions to try and get him to ask me out.”

“Oh no, he already seems like he wants to ask you out. I was going to try and make you ask him out.”

“I’m not going to ask out my doctor!”

“But you already know him, it’s not like you met him for the first time while he was treating you! Plus, he very clearly likes you! Ask him out!”

“I’m pretty sure any interest he had in me was lost by hearing that I accidentally injured myself with mushrooms.”

“If you think he’s not interested in you then you are even more emotionally blind than I thought,” Straal rolled his eyes at Paul. Just then an insistent beeping noise started in Straal’s pocket, and he pulled out his PADD. “Oh, crap I left an experiment running before we left the lab.”

“Go, check on it. I’ll be fine,” Paul said.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to abandon you.”

“It’s fine Straal, our research is more important than you being here to hold my hand.”

“Well, I think we both know who you would prefer holding your hand…” Straal trailed off, smirking, at the look Paul was giving him.

“Go, do science. Leave me here to suffer.”

“Yes, leave you to suffer heart ache every time you look at Doctor Culber.”

“Seriously, go away now.”

“Fine, fine, I’m going.” With a parting wave, Straal left the consult room, leaving Paul sitting by himself on the bio-bed, waiting for Hugh to return.

A few moments later the door opened, and Hugh entered the room, holding a small dermal regenerator and another hypo-spray in one hand, and a bright red lollipop in the other.

“Hey, where did your friend go?” said Hugh, noticing Straal’s absence.

“He had to go deal with stuff at the lab, we kind of left in a hurry.” Paul’s eyes lingered on the lollipop in Hugh’s hand. “Is that a lollipop?” he asked, hopefully.

“Yes! I went to the paediatrics unit on my way back from the storage closet, because you looked so sad when I said I didn’t really have a lollipop for you.” Hugh laughed as he spoke.

“I love you!” Paul said enthusiastically, reaching for the red candy.

Hugh handed it to him, and sat in the chair that Straal had vacated, placing his various medical instruments on the table between the chair and the bed. “If I’d known bringing you candy was all I needed to do to get that sort of response from you, I’d have brought some to the café earlier.”

Paul blushed, realizing what he had said. “I meant that I uh, I loved the candy.”

“They are pretty good actually,” Hugh said conversationally, as he began hooking the regenerator up to Paul’s injured hand. “Okay, this one is to promote tissue growth,” he said, readying the second hypo-spray.

“Will I get another lollipop after this one?”

“One lollipop per patient, sorry, I don’t make the rules,” Hugh said as he injected the hypo-spray into Paul’s arm. “Okay, this might hurt a little bit, but that’s what the pain killer was for,” he said as he turned on the regenerator.

Paul felt a gentle tickling in his hand that slowly turned into a mild burning, but it hurt a lot less than the initial burn had.

“So how did you end up with an acid burn from a mushroom?” Hugh asked.

“I was just tending to our specimens, but I was distracted and accidentally touched one that secretes acid,” said Paul, hoping Hugh wouldn’t ask what had had him so distracted.

“Why were you so distracted?”

Paul internally cursed at Hugh’s question, but decided to take a chance and tell the truth. “I was thinking about you, actually.”

“Me?” Hugh smiled.

“Yes, I was trying to figure out how it was possible for someone who seemed so intelligent to have such bad taste in music,” Paul couldn’t help but be a little sarcastic.

“Funnily enough, I found myself wondering the exact same thing while doing my rounds this afternoon,” Hugh replied, just as teasingly.

They smiled at each other.

“I wasn’t kidding you know, when I said I came back to the café because I hoped you would be there,” said Hugh.

“I… don’t really know what to say to that,” Paul replied, honestly. “But I do know that as soon as you sat down beside me, I wanted you to stay there.”

“Even though I was humming Kasseelian opera?”

“Even though you were humming Kasseelian opera.”

Just as Hugh was opening his mouth to say something else, the dermal regenerator made a loud beeping noise. Hugh switched it off and removed it from Paul’s arm, which was now shiny pink and sore looking, but no longer badly burned.

“I can’t do anything more with the regenerator, but it’s mostly healed. You’ll just need to keep it bandaged and apply a topical burn cream once a day for the next three or four days.”

“I can do that.”

“You also need to not touch any more dangerous mushrooms with your bare skin.”

“Well, then you need to stop being so distracting.”

Hugh laughed as he got up from his chair. “I’m going to go get you some bandages and that cream I mentioned, I’ll be right back. Try to stay out of trouble!”

“I can’t promise anything!” Paul called to Hugh’s retreating form.

Paul sank back against the head of the bed, sighing. Well, it looked like Straal had been right (not that he was ever going to admit that to him), Hugh did like him, and Paul couldn’t deny that he was just as, if not more, interested in Hugh.

A few moments later Hugh returned, carrying a small white tub and a few rolls of bandages.

“I’ll wrap your hand for you and apply the first dose of cream,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and gently grabbing Paul’s mostly healed hand. He very carefully applied a small amount of cream to the newly restored skin and then quickly and expertly wrapped Paul’s hand with the soft guaze.

“Thank you, dear doctor,” said Paul, once Hugh had finished his ministrations.

“You are very welcome, Paul,” Hugh said, warmly. “Since your friend left, how are you getting home?”

“Oh, I was just going to walk back to the lab and get back to work, once we were done here.”

“You are not going back to work immediately after an injury like that!” Hugh protested.

“It wasn’t that bad in the first place and you fixed it!”

“Yes, it’s mostly healed now but your body still needs at least a good night’s rest to recover, before you’re ready for work again.”

“I have things I need to do, experiments I need to finish,” said Paul.

“They can wait, and if they need to be looked after right now, then I’m sorry but your friend can do them for you.” Hugh made a face that said he was not to be questioned on this subject again.

“Fine. Fine, I’ll go home and rest,” Paul said, grumpily.

“Yes, you will. I’m going to walk you home, to make sure you actually get there though.”

“Don’t you have work to do here?”

“No, you’re my last patient, my shift is already over.”

“I’m really okay, Hugh. You don’t need to walk me home.”

“I know that I don’t need to, but I want to. Plus, I don’t believe that you will go home without trying to stop in at the lab unless someone makes you.”

“You know me surprisingly well for someone I just met today,” Paul relented.

“That’s what I thought,” Hugh smiled. “Come on then, let me take you home.” He stood up from the bed and offered his hand to Paul, to help him up.

Paul accepted Hugh’s hand, with his uninjured one, but didn’t let go once he was standing. Hugh didn’t seem to have a problem with this, instead he simply wove his and Paul’s fingers together. They walked out of the consult room and out through the doors leading to the general admittance area, Hugh waving and calling out goodbyes occasionally to nurses and other staff members.

“So, where exactly do you live?” Hugh asked, turning to face Paul once they were outside the hospital.

“Not far from our café, actually,” Paul said, beginning to lead them in the direction of his and Straal’s shared apartment.

“Our café,” Hugh repeated, a cute smile gracing his features. “I like that.”

“I like it too,” said Paul, smiling as a pink blush worked its way onto his pale cheeks.

About ten minutes later, they were standing on the steps that led to Paul’s building, their hands, which had stayed linked while they walked, finally separated. “Well, I guess this is where I leave you,” said Hugh.

“Do you want to come in?” Paul said, trying not to sound too hopeful. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Hugh yet.

“Only to make sure you actually get to bed,” replied Hugh.

“That’s fine with me,” said Paul, leading the way through the lobby and into the lift that would take them to his floor. The ride in the lift was very quick, and Paul spent the entire time trying to keep his face from revealing how happy he was that Hugh had wanted to come in and spend longer with him.

“This is me,” said Paul, stopping in front of his door after they walked out of the elevator. He typed the security number onto the keypad on the door, and they walked into his apartment together. Suddenly, now that they were in his apartment, Paul felt rather awkward. Hugh seemed to be feeling the same way, if his silence was anything to go by.

“Thanks for walking me home,” Paul said.

“You’re welcome. I wanted to make sure you were okay,” replied Hugh, smiling a little shyly.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“I wouldn’t mind some water, and I think you should probably have some juice or something actually. Sugar is always good when the body has had a bit of a shock,” said Hugh, no longer awkward and beginning to go into doctor mode again.

Paul walked into the small kitchenette and replicated a glass of orange juice and a water, and handed the latter to Hugh, before sitting down on the couch in front of the large holo-screen that adorned much of the living room wall. Hugh took a sit beside him, sipping his water. They didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but the silence was comfortable rather than awkward.

Paul was enjoying Hugh’s comforting presence when he noticed a noise coming from the doctor. He rolled his eyes. “Hey! Stifle it or go sit somewhere else,” Paul said, injecting annoyance he didn’t really feel into his voice.

Paul could feel Hugh’s shoulders shaking beside him as he began laughing. “You’re really something else, Paul,” said Hugh, turning to face the astromycologist.

“I’m not the one who won’t stop humming Kasseelian opera,” Paul retorted.

Hugh laughed, and then started humming again.

“Hey! Stop that! I’m supposed to be resting, aren’t I? You’re disturbing me!”

“Make me,” Hugh said, resuming his humming.

A bold urge overtook Paul then, and, leaning towards Hugh, he acted on it. He closed his eyes, and very carefully pressed his lips against Hugh’s. That stopped the humming, and Hugh tensed in surprise for a moment, before he melted into the kiss and raised one hand to place it against the back of Paul’s neck.

Paul leaned into the touch a little, and Hugh deepened the kiss, putting his other hand on Paul’s waist. They stayed like that for several moments, but eventually broke apart, breathing heavily.

“You know, maybe Kasseelian opera isn’t that bad.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Star Trek has been a huge part of my life for almost as long as I can remember but I've only ever really been into the Original Series and the AOS movies (some of my earliest experience with fanfiction was actually in the AOS fandom) and I initially didn't like Discovery, when I watched the first three episodes when it first came out. A few weeks ago I started rewatching season one and got further into it, and fell head over heels in love, and I became particularly enamoured with a certain astromycologist and dear doctor. So this happened. 
> 
> A couple of things I should mention;  
> 1\. I don't know anything about medicine, nor did I do much research, so don't trust anything I said here.  
> 2\. I also know nothing about astromycology, or mycology in general, and I am positive 99% of the information about it in this fic is wrong.  
> 3\. I really, really, really love Hugh Culber and Paul Stamets and their love made me believe in humanity, love, and the world again. 
> 
> Also, I didn't learn that Straal's first name was Justin until I was midway through this fic and I really couldn't be bothered using it after that point, plus I like the name Straal better anyway. I think there was a comic book that went into more detail about how Paul and Hugh met than they did in the actual show but I've never read it, so this is my version of what happened. 
> 
> Okay, thank you again and live long and prosper!


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